The government should enforce stricter measures and punish breeders who chronically fatten “divine pigs” for weighing competitions held by some local temples, the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Playing a video of how divine pigs are abused by being force-fed and cruelly slaughtered, the EAST accused the government of turning a blind eye by failing to hold inhumane breeders accountable under the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法).
These breeders put the animals in custom-made metal cages to limit their movement and force-feed them, EAST researcher Tsun Fang-chu (寸舫筑) said.
Photo: Cheng Ming-hsiang, Taipei Times
After they have grown to a certain size, divine pigs cannot even walk, as their feet can no longer support their weight, Tsun added.
In Taiwan, some temples hold divine pig weighing competitions as part of their religious and cultural festivals. The heaviest pig is declared the winner and the owner receives a prize. All pigs are eventually killed and offered as sacrifices to a city god or a local deity.
Tsun said the group in August last year filed complaints with the Taoyuan City Government and the Council of Agriculture (COA) to protest the practice, and received the following replies: “The practice does not constitute animal abuse, as it does not create internal wounds in pigs,” “The pigs eat on their own initiative” and “Fattening divine pigs to a point where they can no longer walk is a way to maximize profits.”
Council data from last year showed that Taiwan had seven divine pig breeders at the time and 34 divine pigs nationwide, she said.
However, the Yimin Festival (義民祭) in Hsinchu County — a Hakka festival in which divine pigs are killed as offerings to gods and tributes to warriors who died fighting to protect their land — last year saw 31 divine pigs in the weighing competition, with 20 of them weighing more than 600kg, she said.
Thirty-five temples nationwide held similar contests in the same year, with the estimated number of divine pigs exceeding 270, she said, citing EAST surveys.
Although the council has for the past two decades said that it favors issuing verbal warnings instead of imposing punishments, its data on the numbers of divine pigs and breeders are not even right, she said.
“Who exactly has the COA given any verbal warning to?” she added.
The government should dole out immediate punishments and stop certain divine pig breeders from continuing the abuse, she said.
Religious dedication to deities and animal abuse do not have to go hand in hand, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said, adding that there must be a more humane way to raise divine pigs.
Folk traditions should be respected, but it is a completely different matter if a breeder raises divine pigs by abusing them to maximize economic gains, Wu said.
The tradition can be preserved without contravening the Animal Protection Act, she said, citing some temples, which hold divine pig painting contests using statues in lieu of fattened sacrificial pigs, in their effort to strike a balance between observing the tradition and animal care.
The government should encourage alternative practices and create incentives, such as economic ones, for temples to transform their way of following the tradition, she said.
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